


The Name Of The World

by entanglednow



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Denial, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Historical, M/M, Pining, Plausible Deniability, Unexpected Baby, Unexpected Responsibilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22238476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: In which Crowley's temptation comes with a complication, and Aziraphale fails at keeping him at arm's length.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 77
Kudos: 571





	The Name Of The World

The army has already passed through by the time Aziraphale gets to the city. They were under orders not to kill anyone, but they've taken most of the able-bodied men, and almost all of the food, so it amounts to the same thing really. A city can survive many things but starvation isn't one of them.

Aziraphale has been told to provide moral guidance and succour to the faithful. But he supposes if he doesn't ask which ones are 'the faithful' and just helps wherever he can, then he's still accomplishing his mission, and he can send in his report without any guilt whatsoever. The voice in his head - which sounds disturbingly like Crowley - points out that this is a rather elastic definition of obedience. He tries his best to ignore it.

It's still a few days before he spots a familiar figure, perched on one of the low walls, just outside the city. Crowley is hard to miss, even when Aziraphale isn't absently looking for him, isn't always half expecting to find him, as he moves from place to place. The demon's distinctive red hair is a tangle, half gathered at the back of his head with thin cord, and his black trousers and tunic are dusty at the hems. He has half a bunch of plump, red grapes in his hand, and there's a bulky weight to the wrap around his chest that suggests he's taken the opportunity to steal valuables from the city. Which seems the perfect excuse for Aziraphale to go and thwart his no doubt fiendish intentions. 

Aziraphale heads in his direction, working up a disappointed frown on the way, to cover the unexpected pleasure that always takes him at the sight of him. Crowley takes the opportunity to finish his grapes, and then dries his fingers off on his trousers.

There's a strange tension to Crowley's usual sprawl, as if he fully expects Aziraphale to call him out for his blatant thievery, for taking advantage of these people who've suffered enough, and were sure to suffer more in the coming days. He's well positioned here, the awning over his head angled almost perfectly to shade him from the high Summer sun, as it moves through the afternoon. Though his glasses are small enough that Aziraphale can see over the lenses, where Crowley's eyes are scrunched uncomfortably, his pupils faint lines of black in yellow.

"Of course you'd be here," Aziraphale says. "With the army three days gone and the population desperate. I should have known you'd show up here, to practice your temptations, you -"

Crowley scowls once he reaches the edge of the wall, and raises a finger to his mouth in the universe 'shush' gesture. The other hand he lifts and uses to carefully move aside the fabric wrapped across his torso. It's not valuables tucked against his chest, instead there's the bunched-up curl of a sleeping infant. He's impossibly small, one cheek pressed to the warmth of Crowley's thin under-tunic, the pressure folding its tiny mouth half-open, chin glistening wet. 

"- foul fiend," Aziraphale finishes in a whisper. "Oh." Any other words he might have spoken are stalled in his throat by surprise.

"Not here on business, angel. Just passing through." There's a lightness to the words that suggests they're not entirely true, but he retrieves a new bunch of grapes from behind him and offers it to Aziraphale, nodding towards the wall next to him. Crowley would likely insist the offer of fruit is a wicked bribe, but Aziraphale will consider it a delightful gift instead. Thus both their duties are seen to, and they can relax somewhat. 

Aziraphale takes the grapes with a smile, noting how deliciously plump and fresh they look. Then he settles himself on the wall next to him, and pulls some from their prickly stems. They are just as juicy as they look.

"I saw you yesterday, miracling more food into that trader's cart," Crowley says softly.

"Yes, well, it seemed a little pointless convincing people to do good works, while also letting them slowly starve to death," Aziraphale offers, in the same quiet tone.

"We both know it's not going to be enough." There's no satisfaction in the words, for all his vexation with mankind, Crowley has never enjoyed their suffering.

Aziraphale looks him over again, can't help himself really, because the child is something of a talking point. Aziraphale had reasoned that it was polite to allow the subject to arise naturally. But Crowley seems disinclined to explain, he simply watches Aziraphale eat grapes with an expression of fond amusement. The baby's back heaves a breath in its sleep, and a small hand fidgets where it's half-curled out of the dark wrap of soft cloth, scratching rhythmically at Crowley's dark tunic. He's the picture of innocence, sleeping soundly against a demon's chest. 

The grapes are eventually gone, and Aziraphale has still said nothing. The baby gives a little sigh and squirms a touch, face pushing and then rubbing, leaving wet streaks on black linen. 

Aziraphale can't help but be reminded of the Ark, more than three thousand years ago now, of the huddle of twelve, small, dirty children he'd discovered in the bowels of the boat. The air had been thick with the smell of damp and animal faeces. When he'd drawn aside the weight of a thick animal hide he'd discovered them tucked into a narrow space, the rough wood padded out with fur and llama wool, and with midnight black feathers that smelled of brimstone and cinnamon. The children had drawn together, bunching and grasping each other protectively, watery-eyed and too thin, all arms and legs and terrified faces.

Aziraphale had pretended he hadn't seen them and moved on. But later, he'd left food wrapped in cloth in the lower levels, blankets hidden between beams of wood. He'd refused to acknowledge Crowley, the few times that he'd seen him skulking around. It had felt too much like disobeying orders, like _questioning_ things.

But the alternative had been unthinkable. 

None of those children had been this young though, none of them had been babies. This one looks a few months old at most, limbs still new and awkward, back a soft, foldable curve, barely bigger than his spread hand. He has to ask, of course he does, he can't just sit here and ignore the obvious.

"You have a baby." The words escape on an exasperated breath. "Crowley, why do you have a baby?"

Crowley scowls at him briefly, as if Aziraphale has been terribly rude for mentioning it, but then he seems to realise how ridiculous he's being, of course Aziraphale has to ask. 

"My temptation turned out to have a bit of a complication." He stops, mouth twisting in a way that suggests that may be an understatement. His expression pinches in while Aziraphale watches, annoyance melting into something more conflicted, layered over with what feels like frustration.

Aziraphale hopes that his silence will gently encourage more information, though he already suspects this is something Crowley hasn't thought through. That perhaps this is a decision he made recklessly, and is still trying to justify it to himself. Crowley scowls at him, as if he'd fully expected Aziraphale's judgement. But eventually it falls away on a sigh and he looks down at the sleeping baby.

"She was a dancer. I didn't know she had a baby, Hell's paperwork isn't always up to date. I was supposed to get her to seduce some oily general, convince her he could have her dripping in jewels. I didn't have to try very hard, she was more than up for rolling around in jewels, and being a general's kept mistress. She was less up for taking the kid with her. Probably hard to be an unfathomable seductress when you're lugging a new baby around, tends to put men off."

"So you offered to -" Aziraphale gestures at the child.

"I offered to keep an eye on him, until she comes back for him," Crowley says, in that tight way that they both know is a lie, but neither of them are willing to draw attention to it. "Not that he's much trouble, he mostly eats, sleeps and shits. Occasionally he sticks his wobbly head up and looks at stuff, or makes a bloody racket." The baby's foot stretches, slips free of the wrapped material and dangles in the sun. Crowley curls a hand around it without looking, and then carefully folds it back inside, tucks it away where it's safe from the elements. "Honestly, I forget he's even there half the time."

Aziraphale gives the way Crowley's hand folds protectively around the curl of the baby's back a pointed look, and the demon's expression dares him to comment on it.

"What's his name?" Aziraphale asks instead.

Crowley sniffs. "She didn't give him one."

"Ah." Aziraphale supposes that complicates things a little. "Are you going to -?"

Crowley grates out an unhappy noise before he finishes the question. "Lot of pressure that, naming something."

Aziraphale understands what he means, of course. Naming things for humans is easy, and expected, it's simply a description, a word, a sound chosen to know someone or something by. But they're both far older and more complicated than that. In the beginning, when you named something you took responsibility for it, you claimed it by speaking its name aloud, naming things bound you to them forever. And knowing something's true name gave you power over it. 

Names in general were powerful things, not to be taken or given lightly. Changing your name was impossible - unthinkable, you'd have to break yourself down and make yourself anew to do it. 

The only ones who had ever done that were the Fallen.

"It doesn't work that way for them," Aziraphale reminds him gently. Humans were different, they were made to be different.

Crowley grunts something annoyed, as if to say that he knows that, that he knows and it doesn't matter, doesn't make it any easier.

"Is that right?" He tilts his head to stare at Aziraphale through tinted lenses. "Fine, you do it then, name the little bean, if it's so easy."

Aziraphale looks down at the sleeping infant, a huddle of small limbs, taking quick, quiet breaths, face pressed to a damp patch of Crowley's tunic. He finds himself strangely shocked by the idea of it. By the suggestion that he simply choose a collection of sounds, a meaning, and give it to this child.

"Oh, no, I couldn't -" He stops, because he suddenly understands Crowley's dilemma.

"Why not?" Crowley presses. "They name things all the time, don't they? Name them and then abandon them, give them away, break them. Or maybe they decide that they just don't measure up, weren't what they wanted after all, leave them to fend for themselves and never think of them again. Maybe the name you're given first doesn't matter at all."

Aziraphale is certain that Crowley isn't talking about human beings any more.

"Names are still important," he says gently.

Crowley nods agreement, but it's clear he thinks he's won the argument. 

They sit together for a while, while the sun slowly sinks, sharing the curious moments in the decades since their last meeting. The way Rome's marvels have been destroyed or left to rot. Though mankind continues to spread and to thrive. They eat grapes, and sticky dates, and share from the flask Crowley has next to him, passing it back and forth. It's some sort of odd, spicy, warming concoction that Aziraphale hasn't encountered yet, and finds utterly delicious. He does hope it catches on. The things he's fond of usually do, at least for a while. He suspects Crowley may have something to do with it.

He doesn't quite know how to thank him for it. Crowley can be so prickly about that. 

The baby wakes, squirming displeasure and whining, until Crowley draws the wrapping away and shifts his small body upright. He's still too young to support himself entirely, but seems content to slump against Crowley's downturned hand, one fist trying to rub an eye, and mostly just accomplishing unpleasant butts to his own face. It ends up in his mouth, but Aziraphale has noticed that where children are concerned everything does eventually. The pudgy fist is coated liberally in saliva before being pulled free and shaken. The child looks healthy enough, with fluffy points of dark hair and big eyes, mouth pink, cheeks warm from sleep.

He makes a noise, a rumbling little vibration, questioning, or perhaps hungry, Aziraphale doesn't have the experience to tell. But Crowley huffs down at him, as if to tell him to stop complaining.

"He's terrible company," Crowley says absently, hand catching the waving fist and letting the fingers curl and scratch at him, in a strange, compulsive sort of way. "I probably won't get a decent conversation out of him for twenty years or more."

Which is somehow shocking in a way the initial presence of the child hadn't been. Aziraphale opens his mouth, to remind Crowley that he's a demon, that he's a demon and obviously he can't _keep_ him. If Hell found out that he was caring for an infant -

But Aziraphale sees the twist of mouth, the pinch of quiet, frustrated resignation in his expression. There's something strangely lost in the way Crowley looks down at the baby's fragile human weight between his hands. 

Crowley already knows, and suddenly it seems impossibly cruel to voice it out loud.

"You've clearly been taking very good care of him," Aziraphale offers instead. He's expecting the scathing look, and the way Crowley makes a vaguely disgusted noise. But then Crowley can't seem to help himself smoothing down the baby's hair, adjusting his small, clean, carefully stitched tunic. 

"It's not like it's hard," he mutters. But then he sighs and turns on the wall, so Aziraphale can be seen more easily, he slots a thumb under the baby's chin, until his wobbly head stabilises itself. It's such an easy gesture, as if he's done it dozens of times before.

Aziraphale smiles and introduces himself, and the baby stares in big-eyed wonder for a moment, before his mouth stretches out, and he's making little hiccuping sounds of delight in his direction. He's young enough to sense more of Aziraphale than most people, to feel something of the essence of him. Aziraphale likes to think he feels like a place of love to them. Crowley gives a low, disgruntled huff and rolls his eyes, as if he expected nothing less. 

But Aziraphale doesn't miss the way tiny hands continue to pat at Crowley's tunic, content to remain in his arms, rather than turning and reaching for Aziraphale's. Crowley's the one who turns him completely, his plump baby legs dangling over Crowley's narrow thigh, toes curling as he shuffles his bare feet up and down with little grunts of impatience.

"Well, go on then," Crowley says, as if answering an unspoken request with great reluctance. "Give him a poke, he won't bite."

The baby reaches out, and Crowley leans sideways a little, so the child's hands can investigate Aziraphale's fingers, the wide sleeves of his tunic, damp hands gripping with clumsy determination, wet mouth open in concentration. The child is open and curious, fascinated, tugging at his sleeve and mouthing strange noises that mean nothing but seem to delight him. His attention is torn between Aziraphale's face and the white cloth of his tunic, and he seems to want to pull himself closer to both. He leans forward in Crowley's hands, until Aziraphale instinctively reaches out and steadies him between them both, feels the warm, living weight of him. The way his hands move to Aziraphale's arm, grabbing and scratching at the hair with tiny, oddly sharp nails. Aziraphale is utterly charmed.

Though it occurs to him suddenly how very close he and Crowley are now. Their long history has been one of careful positioning, of tentative passes of wine cups and utensils, and cautious, socially appropriate greetings. This is the most they have ever touched, the closest they've ever been to each other. Aziraphale can feel the sun-warmed length of the demon's arm, and the press of a narrow thigh, the spare, angular weight of him leant against his side, almost comfortably. Aziraphale has let himself turn into Crowley, to support him, without thought, as if they had no reason to be cautious of each other, as if they weren't both bound to opposing powers. Their hair is close enough to mingle, in curls of dark red and pale white. Far too close for hereditary enemies. It's all unexpectedly intimate, in a way that leaves Aziraphale suddenly feeling flustered and guilty.

He pulls himself away in one startled movement, clears his throat awkwardly, and watches a procession of traders and merchants from the city drift through the gate and towards the road.

Crowley straightens slowly, out of the space they'd briefly shared, adjusts his glasses. By the time Aziraphale turns to look at him again, his expression is carefully blank. 

"I could help you find somewhere for him, someone for him," Aziraphale says quietly, grasping for words that don't acknowledge the moment before. "If you like."

Crowley says nothing for a long minute. There's a flatness to his face, an anger that seems primed to protest, to snap refusal. But then it's gone, leaving something tired and resigned in its wake.

"Not here though," he says simply.

Aziraphale shakes his head. "No, not here, I'm afraid it's just a matter of time. Somewhere to the North perhaps?"

"Cold there," Crowley protests. 

Aziraphale nods. The North is prone to shockingly cold Winters.

"There's a city to the east."

"Full of criminals," Crowley says immediately.

Aziraphale suspects there's a theme here. But he forges on hopefully.

"The small settlement up the river, that's relatively peaceful."

"That's a fast-flowing river, angel. A child could drown easily in it." Crowley's not looking at him any more, shoulders drawn up tightly, as if he expects Aziraphale to ask in annoyance if any of his suggestion will be seriously considered, or if Crowley plans to protest them all.

But he doesn't. 

Aziraphale has never been able to feel anything from Crowley. Though it's been a long time since he'd doubted that the demon felt everything it was possible to feel. He'd wondered if perhaps that was the cruellest punishment of the Fall. To leave them knowing exactly what they'd lost, still feeling so much, with no respite from it, no reassurance, no possibility of return, a constant cry with no answer. 

But the child, Aziraphale can feel the child. He's so very young, but to him Crowley is everything warm, and safe, and protected. To him, Crowley is the whole world.

"We can take a while to think about it," Aziraphale reassures him quietly. "Find somewhere he'll be safe, there's no need to rush."

Crowley grunts something that sounds annoyed, as if it will be a terrible chore. But Aziraphale knows him well enough to take it as reluctant gratitude, as refusal to admit to anything that will make him vulnerable, but acknowledging that Aziraphale knows all the same.

Crowley turns the baby around, lets him sit in a sprawl on his lap facing outwards, to see the colourful awnings, the slow stream of people from the city, and a few dusty horses. One of Crowley's hands spans his entire chest to hold him securely there, long fingers wet with thin streams of baby dribble.

Aziraphale watches the boy try and reach his own feet with determined little grunts of effort.

"Darion," Crowley mutters quietly.

Aziraphale says nothing, makes no comment on Crowley's choice of a name, one that means simply ' _gift_.' He just lets it sit in the world for a moment, lets the baby's name curl around him and become him, before he gives an approving nod.


End file.
